Abstract
This article considers Carlos Hugo Christensen's film O menino e o vento (1968) through the work of queer theorist Leo Bersani. It argues that Christensen’s depiction of same-sex desire makes a fundamental challenge to social organization by reconfiguring the basic unit of interpersonal relations (self and other). Against the well-disciplined homosexual subject, the film presents homosexuality as an impersonal, quasi-mystical, homoerotic force that breaks down and transcends the barriers between individuals, shattering all efforts to name and so to control it. This article addresses specifically the question of queer utopias, sketching out what one might look like in Lusophone cinema. It contributes to the current scholarship on Christensen while examining how ideas about homosexuality are formulated in Lusophone cultures more generally, and how they might be politically useful.
Highlights
This article considers Carlos Hugo Christensen’s film O menino e o vento (1968) through the work of queer theorist Leo Bersani
Scholarship on male homosexuality in Brazilian cinema takes a range of theoretical perspectives and positions, and frequently diverges on what counts as a “good” representation of homosexuality
Commentators have noted that O menino e o vento is surprisingly positive in its approach to homosexuality (Moreno 202; Ruffinelli 313)
Summary
O menino e o vento tells the story of a young engineer, José Nery, who returns to a rural town he visited recently on holiday. While the film provides viewers with a variety of homoerotic shot-work, images of male bodies both half-naked and fully nude, as well as a passionate embrace between José and Zeca, it is difficult to determine precisely what is exactly “homosexual” about their relationship, aside from the suggestion of mutual affection, because their interactions are bound up with and articulated through an unusual, shared passion for the town’s powerful wind system. I will comment in detail on the way Christensen contrasts Mário’s closeted but stable homosexuality with José’s sexual ambiguity, but to summarize here, I suggest that Christensen transforms Machado’s text in order to set up two distinct modes of homosexuality: first, by enabling or enhancing a sense of similarity between José and Zeca; and second, by contrasting the sexually ambiguous José with the closeted figure of Mário
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